The 2018 edition of UW Fast Facts is now available. You can find it on the OPB website under the UW Data tab, and in the Quick Links bar on the right.
A special thank you to OPB’s Institutional Data & Analysis team, the Marketing & Communications team and to our partners around the UW for their work to gather, verify and crosscheck data; format the document; and pull it all together.
OPB has released a new brief that provides an overview of Activity Based Budgeting (ABB) distribution principles and trends at the UW in Seattle. This brief updates last year’s overview, adding the most recent year’s data. It compares the ABB budgets of Seattle academic units to those of Seattle administrative units over the last seven years (FY12-FY18). The brief also describes a change in the distribution methodology of net tuition operating fee revenue that became effective in FY18.
A few noteworthy trends described in the brief include:
The brief also touches on ABB’s future at UW. OPB is working with stakeholders to address emergent issues identified since ABB’s implementation, such as potentially duplicative courses and degrees, the distribution of supplement funds (e.g. permanent base budgets), and summer quarter revenue from programs run by the Continuum College.
Hi! I am Lauren Hatchett, and I am the 2017-18 Legislative and Policy Analysis Intern with the Office of Planning & Budgeting. I am also a graduate student in the Masters in Education Policy Program in the College of Education. Before moving to Seattle and starting my program, I worked for an education initiative in Louisville, KY that is focused on changing the college-going culture at the city level. I am excited to join the OPB team and am looking forward to diving into the world of higher education policy. I will update this blog throughout the year with posts related to trends in higher education, federal and state legislative issues, and UW-specific policy initiatives.
Please feel free to provide feedback along the way. I can be contacted at lehatch@uw.edu. Thanks for reading!
OPB has posted two summaries concerning the 2017 legislative session to the Briefs tab of our website:
The 2017 Bill Summary lists the bills OPB tracked during session that were passed by the legislature. Links to veto messages are provided for bills that were vetoed or partially vetoed by the Governor. OPB tracked over 460 bills in the 2017 legislative session, 69 of which passed into law.
The 2017 Fiscal Note Summary lists the fiscal notes—evaluations of the fiscal impact of a bill proposal—that OPB completed on behalf of the UW (with the help of subject matter experts across the University) during the 2017 session. All fiscal notes are requested by the Office of Financial Management (OFM) in Olympia to guide legislative decision-making. This session, OPB completed 111 fiscal notes.
OPB has released two new briefs.
The first brief focuses on trends in Resident Undergraduate (RUG) tuition rates and state funding environments across the United States, based on the most recent “Trends in College Pricing” report, which is released by the College Board each year. The report identifies Washington as the only state to have lower RUG tuition and fee rates than it did five years ago.
The report serves as a basis for a deep dive into the funding environments of some other case studies. The brief looks at Louisiana, Florida and Ohio as comparisons to Washington, as they are the three other states whose legislatures retain RUG tuition setting authority. Despite this fact, each state has had a variety of outcomes regarding tuition policy. California and Maine are also highlighted as case study comparisons because they are the only two other states to show a decrease in tuition over the past five years, though theirs are due to inflation-adjusted tuition freezes.
The second brief is an updated version of previous “Published Price vs. Net Price” briefs, which reflects the newest available data. The brief includes sector-wide data on increases in published price and net price for public and private four-year colleges, a description of how declining state investment in higher education has spurred tuition increases, and a table comparing the UW’s net price net price for resident undergraduates receiving grant or scholarship aid to its U.S. News & World Report top 25 research university peers.
Finally, it is with subdued excited that to announce that these two briefs and blog post will be my last contribution to OPB as an intern. I am graduating tomorrow from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, while taking a job down at the State Capitol in Olympia. Thanks to all for reading!
Hello! My name is Matthew Schoenfeld and I am the 2016-2017 Legislative Analysis Intern with the Office of Planning & Budgeting. I am currently studying for a Master in Public Administration at the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance. I also conducted my undergraduate studies here at UW, earning my BA in Political Science and Law, Societies and Justice. Throughout the school year, I will be updating this blog with posts involving various higher education topics. Post may include, but are not limited to: federal and state legislative issues, reports discussing current trends in higher education, and UW-specific policy initiatives. I am excited to join the team and keep the UW community updated on what’s happening in the world of higher education.
Please contact me at mschoenf@uw.edu with any questions or feedback you may have. Thank you so much for reading!
On September 15, 2016, OPB submitted the UW’s 2017-19 state operating budget request to the Governor’s Office of Financial Management. The UW is mindful of the continuing budget challenges facing the state of Washington and, thus, has limited its budget requests to the 11 most essential and strategic state investments for the 2017-19 biennium. These, along with a variety of mandatory reports and forms that make up a biennial state budget submission, are available on our website at the following location: 2017-19 Operating Budget Request
Here is a brief summary of our requests:
Maintenance Level
Performance Level
Please contact Jed Bradley or Becka Johnson Poppe if you have questions.
OPB has posted two summaries concerning the 2016 legislative session to the Briefs tab of our website:
The 2016 Bill Summary lists the bills OPB tracked during session that were passed by the legislature. Links to veto messages are provided for bills that were vetoed or partially vetoed by the Governor. Of the nearly 600 bills that OPB tracked in the 2016 legislative session, 54 passed into law.
The 2016 Fiscal Note Summary lists the fiscal notes—evaluations of the fiscal impact of a bill proposal—that OPB completed on behalf of the UW (with the help of subject matter experts across the University) during the 2016 session. All fiscal notes are requested by the Office of Financial Management (OFM) in Olympia to guide legislative decision-making. This session, OPB completed 63 fiscal notes.
The rising costs of college are a popular subject for everyone from presidential candidates to media outlets. Parents and students blanche as published tuition prices climb ever higher. But the published price – often referred to as the “sticker price” for colleges – offers a misleading picture of the cost of higher education. OPB has updated our brief to reflect the newest available data on published price vs. net price. Highlights include:
Our updated brief is accessible in this PDF file.
UW Profiles – a set of dynamic, web-based data dashboards – recently received The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) Best Practices Award. This award is widely considered to be the business intelligence industry’s most prestigious honor.
OPB’s Institutional Data & Analysis team developed UW Profiles, in collaboration with UW IT’s Enterprise Information, Integration & Analytics team, and formally launched the site in fall 2013. UW Profiles allows users to explore core UW data through 21 visual dashboards that display summary, comparison and trend data.
Campus Technology Innovators also honored UW Profiles, calling it “an intuitive, user-friendly portal that provides a single point of access to data and visualizations for faculty and staff.”
Congratulations to Institutional Analysis and to all those who worked hard to make UW Profiles a reality!